The article is devoted to identifying the concept of the meaning of life in the critical philosophy of A.I. Vvedensky, where special attention is paid to the methodological foundations and the historical and philosophical context. The formulation of the question about the meaning of life is one of the ultimate questions in philosophy, the answer to which makes it possible to determine the motives of human activity. In Vvedenskyʼs philosophy, the problem of goal-setting in life is revealed in the prism (...) of a key research intention – the construction of a scientifically revised worldview based on the principles of criticism. As a result, the question of life and its purpose is reduced to the formulation of the question of the logical permissibility and boundaries of questioning. The article attempts to reconstruct the philosopherʼs reasoning and identify the most significant definitions, which include morality, mental life, and the purpose of life. The disclosure of the concept of life in Vvedenskyʼs philosophy invariably requires consideration of the context in which the development of the philosopherʼs ideas takes place. Based on a comprehensive analysis, it is concluded that the concept of life is an extension of the main goal of Vvedenskyʼs research – the disclosure of the conditions for the formation of a reliable worldview, focused on the principles of scientific knowledge in accordance with moral values. Another important consequence is the provision on the priority of morality in relation to scientific and philosophical knowledge. The foundations of morality, to which the meaning of life belongs, can be presented only in a special form of applicability of critical reason – critical faith. Thus, the question of the specifics of critical metaphysics and the importance of differentiation of types and forms of faith in the work of the Russian neo-Kantian are clarified. (shrink)

This book follows postwar Germany's leading philosopher and social thinker, Jürgen Habermas, through four decades of political and constitutional struggle over the shape of liberal democracy in Germany. Habermas's most influential theories - of the public sphere, communicative action, and modernity - were decisively shaped by major West German political events: the failure to de-Nazify the judiciary, the rise of a powerful Constitutional Court, student rebellions in the late 1960s, the changing fortunes of the Social Democratic Party, NATO's decision (...) to station nuclear weapons, and the unexpected collapse of East Germany. In turn, Habermas's writings on state, law, and constitution played a critical role in reorienting German political thought and culture to a progressive liberal-democratic model. Matthew Specter uniquely illuminates the interrelationship between the thinker and his culture. (shrink)

As the world watches the current crisis in Kosovo unfold through intensive daily media coverage, particularly by major networks in the US and Europe, one can only wonder why the same attention is not given to the crises in Africa. The military intervention by NATO allied forces, including the United States, to avert Milosevic ’ s genocidal campaign towards the Kosovo Albanians, can only be characterized as an exclusive European mission to resolve Europe ’ s problem. This is not, (...) by all means, to subvert or undermine the suffering of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo but to give some perspective as to how the super powers are responding to other similar crises in the world. Today, any crime against humanity, in any part of the world, regardless of this nations political or economic interest, should not be tolerated. Most Americans, perhaps most of the world, do not know about the mass genocide that took place in Rwanda and the civil war in the Southern Sudan that has left more than a million and half people dead. And now we can add to this list, the recent border conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea that has emerged into a full - scale war. The most recent conflict has already claimed thousands of lives while world superpowers are watching si -. (shrink)

Previous research (e.g., Horiuchi, Goldsmith, and Inoguchi, 2005) has shown some intriguing patterns of effects of several variables on international public opinion about US foreign policy. But results for the theoretically appealing effects of regime type and post-materialist values have been weak or inconsistent. This paper takes a closer look at the relationship between these two variables and international public opinion about US foreign policy. In particular, international reaction to the wars in Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003) are examined using (...) two major multinational surveys. The conclusions of previous research are largely reinforced: neither regime type nor post-materialist values appears to robustly influence global opinion on these events. Rather, some central interests, including levels of trade with the US and NATO membership, and key socialized factors, including a Muslim population, experience with terrorism, and the exceptional experiences of two states (Israel, Albania) emerge as the most important factors in the models. There is also a consistent backlash effect of security cooperation with the US outside of NATO. A discussion of these preliminary results points to their theoretical implications and their significance for further investigation into the transnational dynamics of public opinion and foreign policy. (shrink)

H G WellsHerbert George Wells, an English writer, was born on 21st 1866 and died on 13 Aug 1946. He was renowned for his works of science fiction especially 'The Time Machine'. He is also referred as 'The Father of Science Fiction'.

It neither is nor need be doubted that tutamen opis, preserved like many another true lection in the margin of G and R, is what Catullus wrote. The tutū opus which OGR present in their texts is a simple error arising from the abbreviation of tamen as S0009838800022916_inline1. But the verse still fails to satisfy and is universally esteemed corrupt. The description of Peleus as dear exceedingly to his yet unborn and unbegotten son is so absurd a form of address (...) that all editors now adopt from the interpolated MSS the conjecture ‘clarissime nato.’ This description is neither absurd nor untrue, but it is yet untimely, and sorts ill with the bridegroom's other titles. The ‘decus eximium,’ the ‘magnae uirtutes,’ the ‘tutela Emathiae,’ all are already his: the glory reflected from his heroic son belongs to the future and is part of that prophecy to which in the next two verses he is bidden to give ear. clarissime nupta would be appropriate, and would resemble 25 ‘eximie taedis felicibus aucte’ and Ouid. met. XI 217 sq. ‘coniuge Peleus | clarus erat diua’; but ‘most illustrious in thy son’ breaks away from the rest of this prelude and forestalls what is to come in 338 and the following verses. There is therefore an undercurrent of feeling that even now all is not well: ‘de coniectura ilia dubitari potest, cum propriae Pelei ipsius uirtutes hie praedicentur’ says Baehrens, and Schwabe even proposes so wretched an alternative as ‘carissime fato.’. (shrink)

The human genome project's lasting legacies are the emerging insights into human physiology and disease, and the ascendance of biology as the dominant science of the 21st century. Sequencing revealed that >90% of the human genome is not coding for proteins, as originally thought, but rather is overwhelmingly transcribed into non‐protein coding, or non‐coding, RNAs (ncRNAs). This discovery initially led to the hypothesis that most genomic DNA is “junk”, a term still championed by some geneticists and evolutionary biologists. In contrast, (...) molecular biologists and biochemists studying the vast number of transcripts produced from most of this genome “junk” often surmise that these ncRNAs have biological significance. What gives? This essay contrasts the two opposing, extant viewpoints, aiming to explain their bases, which arise from distinct reference frames of the underlying scientific disciplines. Finally, it aims to reconcile these divergent mindsets in hopes of stimulating synergy between scientific fields. (shrink)

A modern stage of globalization is a historical and logical continuation of “an economical social formation” (K.G. Marx), a civilization (L.G. Morgan). The analysis of this globalization in philosophy and social sciences has an extremely contradictory character which is law-governed in the modern society. Modern globalization has been showing itself as a qualitatively new historical process since 1991. Judging from the positions of the dialectical materialistic theory of history (K.G. Marx, F. Engels, V.I. Lenin and others) it by its essence (...) has got a postneoimperialistic, antagonistic character. It’s main features, attributes has been revealed. It doesn’t solve any sharp global problems, but only aggravated and intensifies them. This globalization has greatly increased, made inhuman the process of “cosmopolitization” which developed during the whole existence of capitalism and imperialism. A total degradation and dehumanization of a social person have been taking place, interstate and civil burst into flames, mass disturbances arise, hundreds thousands of people die, genocide and depopulation of some peoples on the planet become “normal” including the countries of the UIS. Destructive process of modern globalization with the USA as the main “player” together with corresponding international institutions (WTO, ICF, World bank, NATO and other), TNC have been resisted in a definite way by antiglobalizing andalterglobalizing movement in many countries on the planet. (shrink)

Introduction Paul Boshears The following excerpt from Paul Amitai's In Between States: Field notes and speculations on postwar landscapes (2012) confounds its reader. Presenting an alternate history of the State of Israel as a space station orbiting Earth, the excitement of possibilities crackles across the texts and images. Like Chris Marker's La Jeteé , the accompanying static images distort the viewer's temporality: are these archaeological items, images from a past, or a future? Why isn't this our future? In Between States (...) can also be seen as complementing Larissa Sansour's provocative science fiction works, Space Exodus (2009) which "documents" the Palestinian space program, and her Nation Estate (2012), in which Palestine is relocated into a skyscraper. Amitai's vision opens onto an intergalactic diaspora, wherein the refugees of World War II are given the stars as Western Europe continues to fight over terrestial colonies. —PFB Auditorium, Hoechst AG headquarters, Industriepark-Höchst, 2011. In 1941 an investigation by the US Justice Department exposed a marriage cartel between John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil (now ExxonMobil) and I.G. Farben. The two corporations had formed a joint operation in 1927 called Standard IG Farben. It was revealed that the two had shared patents in order to control prices and markets in their respective regions. Standard was accused of hiding patents from the US Navy and supplying fuel to German submarines, which lead to charges of criminal conspiracy. The Pentagon intervened, requesting that President Roosevelt stop the investigation in order to protect war production and oil supply. Roosevelt agreed, and the Senate committee investigating the matter, headed by Senator Harry Truman, was halted. Standard Oil paid a fine of $5000 and promised to stop supplying fuel to the enemies. Auditorium, Hoechst AG headquarters, Industriepark-Höchst, 2011. Furious at the decision to terminate the investigation of acts he considered treason, Truman initiated a new inquiry into Standard Oil’s war-time practices after succeeding Roosevelt as president in 1945. With the chief executives of I.G Farben simultaneously on trial at Nuremburg, Truman brokered a deal with the Allies that reduced or withdrew criminal charges leveled against both corporations in exchange for Standard Oil and I.G. Farben’s sponsorship of one of Truman’s most ambitious postwar projects—the relocation of the Jewish people. Detail, Sanofi-Aventis advertisement, 2011. The third critical player in this bold experiment was the nascent North Atlantic Space Agency. Formed by Allied forces using the seized assets and engineering expertise of Hitler’s hitherto classified space program (conquer Earth, then the stars), the North Atlantic Space Agency was a pre-NATO foray into interstellar nation building, with orbital occupation as the first point of order. By 1947, NASA was nearly ready to deploy the first manned space station. Standard Oil and I.G. Farben’s advanced fuel refinement capacities and deep, war-enriched financial resources allowed NASA to speed up their launch schedule significantly. Detail, Sanofi-Aventis advertisement, 2011. Diplomatic efforts to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine were failing to gain traction, while post-colonial England held its ground on immigration restrictions and bands of Jews and Arabs battled over territory on the ground. More immediate was the issue of temporarily housing Holocaust survivors and refugees across scorched Europe. Leaders of the continental nations demonstrated, at best, reluctance to accommodate the Jews, who in turn were, at the least, resistant to returning to the same bloody cocktail from which they had fled. Truman used the impasse to advance a plan for NASA’s space station to be put to use as a temporary Jewish outpost, an orbital displaced persons camp, to be operated by the US Army. Detail, Infaserv Höchst advertisement, 2011. Final preparations advanced rapidly. Viewing the orbital displaced persons (ODP) camp as a solution to their immigration problem both at home and abroad, England came on board as a willing partner. Spaceship Exodus was positioned for takeoff on German farmland 20 kilometers southwest of Frankfurt. On December 30, 1947, one month after the UN General Assembly voted down the separation plan for Palestine, Exodus rocketed into the atmosphere hauling the first module of barracks designed to house 1,500 refugees. Transport vehicles arrived shortly thereafter, loaded down with leftover wartime military rations and 3,000 Jews of Russian and Polish origin. Detail, Infaserv Höchst advertisement, 2011. "The camp is the space that is opened when the state of exception begins to become the rule."—Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer , trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), 96. Detail, Infaserv Höchst advertisement, 2011. The ODP camp proved to be a longer-term solution than originally envisioned. Additional installations were positioned to form swollen clusters of interlocking units – sleeping quarters, schools, clinics, canteens. The UN was brought in to monitor the camp following two chaotic years of US Army control in which food shortages, pandemic diseases, and rampant black market trade had brought the camp to near total collapse. No less bureaucratic or ineffectual, the UN relief agency at least had prior experience facilitating contexts of a similar magnitude and could potentially predict outcomes. Detail, Infaserv Höchst advertisement, 2011. What had been unexpected was the degree to which the camp would evolve into its own self-regulated, hive-like ecosystem where previously accepted rules of conduct were not applicable. The ODP camp was an exceptional space, a riverboat casino, an offshore research lab of social experimentation and entrepreneurial innovation. No longer Earth-bound, touching soil knotted by prescripts of Talmudic law, the camp residents were able to rationalize loopholes and detonate barriers standing in the way of absolute production. The Jewish archipelago was renamed Israel after the ancient homeland. If the temple couldn’t be rebuilt in the motherland, a post-national rhizome would sprout up in its stead. Eyes everywhere, beyond all borders. More information on the project at the author's site. (shrink)

How can we take history seriously as real and relevant? Despite the hazards of politically dangerous or misleading accounts of the past, we live our lives in a great network of cooperation with other actors; past, present, and future. We study and reflect on the past as a way of exercising a responsibility for shared action. In each of the chapters of Full History Smith poses a key question about history as a concern for conscious participants in the sharing of (...) action, starting with “What Is Historical Meaningfulness?” and ending with “How Can History Have an Aim?” Constructing new models of historical meaning while engaging critically with perspectives offered by Ranke, Dilthey, Rickert, Heidegger, Eliade, Sartre, Foucault, and Arendt, Smith develops a philosophical account of thinking about history that moves beyond postmodernist skepticism. Full History seeks to expand the cast of significant actors, establishing an inclusive version of the historical that recognizes large-scale cumulative actions but also encourages critical revision and expansion of any paradigm of shared action. (shrink)

Hume's Reception in Early America: Expanded Edition brings together the original American responses to one of Britain's greatest men of letters, David Hume. Now available as a single volume paperback, this new edition includes updated further readings suggestions and dozens of additional primary sources gathered together in a completely new concluding section. From complete pamphlets and booklets, to poems, reviews, and letters, to extracts from newspapers, religious magazines and literary and political journals, this book's contents come from a wide variety (...) of sources published in colonial America and the early United States between 1758 and 1850. As well as classics by Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Alexander Hamilton, it contains scores of unknown and hard-to-locate items, many of which have not been reprinted since their original publication. These responses are divided into four parts covering Hume's Essays; his Philosophical Writings; his History of England; and his Character and Death. Each of those parts has a separate introductory essay, and every selection is introduced by a short headnote that sets the piece in its historical context and provides bibliographical references. Packed with new insights into Hume and American thought and culture, Hume's Reception in Early America reveals the relevance and impact of Hume on American political, philosophical, historical, religious, and aesthetic debates. (shrink)

Research has demonstrated that employee reactions to monitoring systems depend on both the characteristics of the monitoring system and how it is implemented. However, little is known about the role individual differences may play in this process. This study proposes that individuals have generalized attitudes toward organizational control and monitoring activities. We examined this argument by assessing the relationship between employees’ baseline attitudes toward a set of monitoring and control techniques that span the employment relationship. We further explore the effects (...) of employees’ generalized attitudes toward monitoring and their individual ethical orientations on their attitudinal reactions to an Internet monitoring system implemented in their workplace. Results of a longitudinal study indicate that as expected, prior beliefs and ethical orientation interact to affect employees’ reactions to monitoring systems. Implications for research and practice are discussed. (shrink)

The problems of this passage were concisely stated by M. Platnauer more than thirty years ago and his suggestions for their solution have been adopted and developed in A. S. F. Gow's magnum opus. Its authority—so the present writer suspects—is liable at this point to eclipse the meaning of the text.

The conceptual framework of behaviorism is reconstructed in a logical scheme rather than along chronological lines. The resulting reconstruction is faithful to the history of behaviorism and yet meets the contemporary challenges arising from cognitive science, psycholinguistics, and philosophy. In this reconstruction, the fundamental premise is that psychology is to be a natural science, and the major corollaries are that psychology is to be objective and empirical. To a great extent, the reconstruction of behaviorism is an elaboration of behaviorist views (...) of what it is for a science to be objective and empirical. The reconstruction examines and evaluates behaviorist positions on observation and the rejection of introspection, the behavioral data language, theory construction, stimulus-response psychology, the organization of behavior, complex processes, agency, and the interpretation of mentalistic language. The resulting reconstruction shows behaviorism to be a pragmatic psychological version of positivism based on a behavioral epistemology. (shrink)

Mathematical modeling is a convenient way for characterization of complex ecosystems. This approach was applied to study the dynamics of zooplankton in Lake Sevan (Armenia) at different stages of anthropogenic eutrophication with the use of a novel method called discrete modeling of dynamical systems with feedback (DMDS). Simulation demonstrated that the application of this method helps in characterization of inter- and intra-component relationships in a natural ecosystem. This method describes all possible pairwise inter-component relationships like “plus–plus,” “minus–minus,” “plus–minus,” “plus–zero,” “minus–zero,” (...) and “zero–zero” that occur in most ecosystems. Based on the results, a working hypothesis was formulated. It was found that the sensitivity to weak external influence in zooplanktons was the greatest during the mid period of eutrophication in Lake Sevan, whereas in the final stages of eutrophication, an outbreak in the biomass production of cyanobacteria was evident. To support this approach, a weak external disturbance in the form of magnetic storm was used to see its effect on species Daphnia longispina sevanica. A statistically significant correlation between the frequency of magnetic storms and the number of this species was revealed and an increase in the number of toxic cyanobacteria species as a consequence of eutrophication. This paper, for the first time, suggests a DMDS method, to diagnose impact of anthropogenic eutrophication on environment. (shrink)

In the article "The Epistemological Nature of Information Modeling" [Gnoseologicheskaia priroda informatsionnogo modelirovaniia], Voprosy filosofii, 1963, No. 10, Academician V. M. Glushkov examines two important methodological aspects of the modeling of natural objects and phenomena in the contemporary natural sciences. The first consists of the informational nature of the models created, and the second of their dynamism. The dynamic nature of today's models in the natural sciences means that it is not so much the material structure of the object that (...) is modeled as its behavior and functions in some sphere of natural phenomena. In this sense, the models under examination may also be termed functional, as distinct from the structural models pertaining to a static description of objects. (shrink)

Wegner (2002) fails to (1) distinguish conscious will and voluntariness; (2) account for everyday willed acts; and (3) individuate thoughts and acts. Wegner incorrectly implies that (4) we experience acts as willed only when they are caused by unwilled thoughts; (5) thoughts are never true causes of actions; and (6) we experience ourselves as first performing mental acts which then cause our intentional actions.